Prisons

Security categorisation discretionary life sentence prisoner having served tariff retrogressive change in category prisoner entitled to make prior representationsR (Hirst) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Lord Chief Justice Woolf, Lord Justices May and Dyson): 8 March 2001The applicant, a discretionary life sentence prisoner whose tariff period had expired, was told that he had been re-categorised from category C to category B.

He was transferred to a category B prison the following day.

He was not given any opportunity to make formal representations before the decisions to re-categorise and move him were implemented.

On his application for judicial review of those decisions, the Divisional Court held that he had not been entitled to be informed in advance of the proposed decisions and the application was dismissed.

The applicant appealed.Edward Fitzgerald QC and Florence Krause (instructed by Hickman & Rose) for the applicant.

Alison Foster (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state.Held, allowing the appeal, that a prisoner sentenced to a life sentence normally progressed through the course of his sentence from one category to another and it would be highly unusual for such a prisoner to be released on licence from category B; that, therefore, the re-categorisation of a prisoner from category C to category B significantly affected the prospects of his being released on licence; that, while it was important that the prison service should be able to take decisions which were operationally important without having to go through technical requirements as to providing opportunities for making representations, the ability of the prison service to meet both operational needs and the need for prisoners to be treated fairly could usually be achieved within the panoply of the requirements of fairness; that there was no reason why it was necessary to re-categorise a prisoner before he was moved to a different prison if operational requirements in fact required that move; but that a decision to re-categorise a prisoner who had served the tariff period of a discretionary life sentence should not be taken, as a matter of fairness, until the prisoner had been given a reasonable opportunity to make representations after being told the grounds for the proposed decision; and that, accordingly, declaratory relief would be granted to the applicant (WLR).